Paint shop pro 8 for dummies (2003)

The chapter also gives quick synopses of what the various tools do, which is particularly useful for anyone who needs just a few hints to get going — and it tells you how to open an imag

by David Kay and

William “The Ferrett” Steinmetz

Paint Shop

FOR

Paint Shop

FOR

by David Kay and

William “The Ferrett” Steinmetz

Paint Shop

FOR

909 Third Avenue

New York, NY 10022

www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2003 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or

by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as ted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8700 Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Legal Department, Wiley Publishing, Inc., 10475 Crosspoint Blvd., Indianapolis, IN 46256, (317) 572-3447, fax (317) 572-4447, e-mail:

permit-permcoordinator@wiley.com.

Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the

Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of Wiley Publishing, Inc., in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: WHILE THE PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR HAVE USED THEIR BEST EFFORTS IN PREPARING THIS BOOK, THEY MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WAR- RANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE NO WARRANTY MAY BE CREATED OR EXTENDED BY SALES REPRESENTA- TIVES OR WRITTEN SALES MATERIALS THE ADVICE AND STRATEGIES CONTAINED HEREIN MAY NOT

BE SUITABLE FOR YOUR SITUATION YOU SHOULD CONSULT WITH A PROFESSIONAL WHERE PRIATE NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFIT OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CON- SEQUENTIAL, OR OTHER DAMAGES.

APPRO-For general information on our other products and services or to obtain technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2003101874

About the Authors

David Kay is a writer, engineer, and aspiring naturalist and artist, combining

professions with the same effectiveness as his favorite business ment, Acton Muffler, Brake, and Ice Cream (now defunct) Dave has writtenmore than a dozen computer books, by himself or with friends His titles

establish-include various editions of Microsoft Works For Windows For Dummies,

WordPerfect For Windows For Dummies, Graphics File Formats, and

The Internet: Complete Reference.

In his other life, as the Poo-bah of Brightleaf Communications, Dave writesand teaches on a variety of subjects He and his wife, Katy, and goldenretriever, Alex, live in the wilds of Massachusetts In his spare time, Davestudies animal and human tracking and munches edible wild plants He alsohas been known to make strange blobs from molten glass, sing Gilbert andSullivan choruses in public, and hike in whatever mountains he can get to

He longs to return to New Zealand and track kiwis and hedgehogs in Wanaka

He finds writing about himself in the third person like this quite peculiar andwill stop now

William “The Ferrett” Steinmetz is a freelance webmaster and editor who

helms StarCityGames.com, one of the premiere Magic: The Gathering lectible card game strategy sites He has also written most of Internet:

col-The Complete Reference in addition to writing computer book reviews for

Amazon.com and TechSoc.com The Ferrett lives in Cleveland and is geeky

To my grandparents Henry and Margie, and to Boots, who believed in mewhen I didn’t You should all be so lucky — T.F

located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media

Development

Project Editor: Rebecca Whitney

Acquisitions Editor: Terri Varveris

Technical Editor: Lee Musick

Editorial Manager: Carol Sheehan

Media Development Manager:

Laura VanWinkle

Media Development Supervisor:

Richard Graves

Editorial Assistant: Amanda M Foxworth

Cartoons: Rich Tennant

www.the5thwave.com

Production

Project Coordinator: Nancee Reeves Layout and Graphics: Seth Conley,

Carrie Foster, Tiffany Muth

Proofreaders: Laura Albert, David Faust,

Andy Hollandbeck, Angel Perez, Carl Pierce, Kathy Simpson, TECHBOOKS Production Services

Indexer: TECHBOOKS Production Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary C Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents at a Glance

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting the Picture 7

Chapter 1: Opening, Viewing, and Saving Image Files .9

Chapter 2: Capturing Pictures from Paper, Camera, or Screen .29

Part II: Painting the Picture 51

Chapter 3: Choosing Colors, Styles, and Textures .53

Chapter 4: Painting, Spraying, and Filling .75

Chapter 5: Painting with Pictures 101

Part III: Improving Appearances 109

Chapter 6: Retouching Touchy Spots .111

Chapter 7: Finessing Photos with Adjustments 125

Chapter 8: Creating Artsy Effects .143

Chapter 9: Adjusting Color By Bits .161

Chapter 10: Laundering Your Image for Brightness, Contrast, and Color 169

Part IV: Changing and Adding Content 185

Chapter 11: Getting Bigger, Smaller, and Turned Around 187

Chapter 12: Selecting Parts of an Image .197

Chapter 13: Moving, Copying, and Reshaping Parts of Your Image 217

Chapter 14: Layering Images 235

Chapter 15: Adding Layers of Text or Shapes 257

Part V: Taking It to the Street 277

Chapter 16: Printing .279

Chapter 17: Creating Web Images 289

Chapter 18: Automating Paint Shop Pro 305

Part VI: The Part of Tens 311

Chapter 19: Ten Perplexing Problems .313

Chapter 20: Ten Fast Fixes for Photo Failures .319

Index 329

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

What Can You Do with This Book? 1

Is This the Book for You? .2

How Is This Book Organized? .2

Part I: Getting the Picture 3

Part II: Painting the Picture .3

Part III: Improving Appearances .3

Part IV: Changing and Adding Content .4

Part V: Taking It to the Street 4

Part VI: The Part of Tens .4

Icons Used in This Book 5

Shortcuts and Conventions in this Book .5

Part I: Getting the Picture 7

Chapter 1: Opening, Viewing, and Saving Image Files .9

Opening Image Files 10

Nifty browser tricks for opening and managing files 10

Helpful hints for opening files by name and location 12

Secrets of opening a file by double-clicking 14

Viewing and Zooming an Image 14

Zooming an image in the window 15

Working on several images at a time .16

Saving a Changed Image File 16

Saving the Image First As a Paint Shop Pro File .17

Saving a Copy of Your File As Another File Type .19

Using Native and Foreign File Types 19

Paint Shop Pro files (PspImage or PSP) 20

BMP 21

TIFF 21

GIF 21

JPEG 22

PNG 23

Using Vector File Types (Drawing Files) .23

Opening vector files .24

Saving vector files — not 24

Converting or Renaming Batches of Files .24

File Types and “Action Required” Messages about Colors 26

Obtaining Image Files from the Web .27

Chapter 2: Capturing Pictures from Paper, Camera, or Screen .29

Connecting to Your Scanner or Camera .29

Scanning into Paint Shop Pro .30

Getting the most from your scanning software .32

Forever plaid: Scanning printed images .37

Straightening crooked scans 38

Getting Images from a Digital Camera .41

Downloading and Opening Photos .42

Making E-Mail-Ready Photos .44

Shrinking Photo Download Times 44

Capturing Images from Your PC Screen .45

Preparing to capture .45

Making the capture .47

Part II: Painting the Picture 51

Chapter 3: Choosing Colors, Styles, and Textures .53

Choosing Paint 57

Choosing a basic color or a recently used pattern .59

Choosing a recently used color .60

Choosing a color from your picture 61

Choosing a Color More Precisely .61

Precise color using the color wheel 62

Additional shades of basic colors .63

Precise color adjustments — by the numbers .64

Working with 256 Colors or Fewer .65

Working with Style: Beyond Plain Paint .66

Choosing a style .66

Choosing gradients .67

Painting with gradients 69

Choosing and making patterns .69

Applying a Texture .70

Storing Custom Materials to Use Again 72

Using a Stored Material .72

Deleting a Stored Material 73

Chapter 4: Painting, Spraying, and Filling .75

Choosing the Tool for the Job .76

The Brush toolset 77

The Eraser toolset 78

The Flood Fill tool 79

Using Basic Artist’s Tools: Paint Brush, Airbrush, and Eraser 79

Painting with the Paint Brush or Airbrush tool 80

Erasing with the Eraser tool 81

Erasing backdrops with the Background Eraser tool .82

Controlling Strokes, Sizes, Shapes, and Spatters: Tool Options .84

Using convenient controls on the Tool Options palette .86

Making lines wider or narrower: Size 87

Shaping clicks, lines, and line ends: Shape .87

Painting with a softer or harder edge: Hardness 88

Making paint thinner or thicker: Opacity 88

Getting speckles of spray: Density .89

Making lines more or less dotty: Step 90

Coloring within the Lines by Using Selection 91

Replacing Colors .91

Filling Areas .93

Filling a selected area with solid color .93

Filling with a gradient, pattern, or texture .94

Blend modes .95

Alex, the Saintly Dog .96

Warping Your Picture 99

Chapter 5: Painting with Pictures .101

Cloning Alex the Dog .102

Other Clone Brush options .105

Cloning versus selection .105

Painting with Picture Tubes 106

Basic tubing 107

Adjusting basic tube behavior 108

Part III: Improving Appearances 109

Chapter 6: Retouching Touchy Spots .111

Adjusting Your Retouch and Hue Strokes .112

The Friendly Finger of the Retouch Toolset .112

Softening 112

Smudging 114

Other Retouch tools 115

The Color Madness of the Hue Toolset .115

Lightening and darkening 115

The rest of the Hue toolset .117

The Scratch Remover Tool .117

The Red-Eye Remover .119

Reconstructing the pupil 120

Outlining problem pupils .122

Replacing pupil and iris .123

xiii

Table of Contents

Chapter 7: Finessing Photos with Adjustments .125

The One Step Photo Fix 126

Using the Adjustment Dialog Boxes 126

Correcting Lighting Color 128

Correcting Contrast and Brightness .129

Intensifying (or Dulling) Colors 130

Removing JPEG, Moiré, and Other Patterns .131

Unearthing JPEG artifacts .132

Don’t want no moiré .132

Unlacing your interlacing .133

Rubbing Out Scratchiness 133

Bringing into Soft Focus .134

Correcting for a Specific Color .135

Sharpening, Edge Enhancing, or Blurring .137

Sharpening 137

Edge enhancing 138

Blurring 138

Removing Noise (Speckles) .139

Chapter 8: Creating Artsy Effects 143

Try ’Em On: Browsing the Effects .145

3-D: Holes, Buttons, and Chisels 146

Art and Artistic Effects: Simulating Traditional Art Media and Beyond .147

Example 1: Topography .148

Example 2: Brush strokes .149

Geometric, Distortion, and Image Effects: Curls, Squeezes, Wraps, and Waves .150

Illumination Effects: Sunbursts and Flares .152

Reflection Effects: Mirrors and Patterns .153

Texture Effects: Bumpy Surfaces from Asphalt to Weaves .155

Relating texture effects to the Material box’s textures .155

Using texture effect controls 156

Example 1: The Fur texture effect .157

Example 2: The Texture texture effect .157

Common Adjustments .159

Framing Your Effects 160

Chapter 9: Adjusting Color By Bits .161

Mastering the Color Illusion .162

Understanding why the trick works 162

Fiddling with the mix .162

Using Hue, Saturation, and Lightness 164

Color Depth and Number of Colors .165

Checking your image’s color depth .165

Increasing color depth to use more tools .166

Reducing color depth for speed or size .166

Chapter 10: Laundering Your Image for Brightness,

Contrast, and Color 169

Using the Adjustment Dialog Boxes 170

Making adjustments .171

Proofing or previewing your adjustments 172

Getting Brighter, Darker, or More Contrast-y .172

Laundering Lights, Mediums, and Darks Separately .173

Laundering for Lightness, Color Intensity, and Hue .175

Lightness: Brightening without bleaching .176

Saturation: Getting more or less intense .177

Hue-ing and crying .177

Altering an Overall Tint .177

Going Gray with a Tint: Colorizing 178

Going Totally Gray or Negative in One Step .179

Using More Sophisticated Color Adjustments .179

Levels 180

Curves 181

Posterize 182

Threshold 182

Part IV: Changing and Adding Content 185

Chapter 11: Getting Bigger, Smaller, and Turned Around .187

Getting Sized .188

Proportioning 189

Dimensioning 189

Avoiding degradation 190

Trimming (Cropping) Your Edges .191

Getting Turned Around, Mirrored, or Flipped .192

Rotating 193

Mirroring and flipping 193

Taking on Borders .194

Achieving a Particular Canvas Size 194

Chapter 12: Selecting Parts of an Image .197

Selecting an Area 198

Selecting a rectangle or other regular shape .200

Selecting by outlining: The Freehand tool .201

Selecting by color or brightness: The Magic Wand tool 203

Modifying Your Selection .206

Moving the selection outline .206

Adding to or subtracting from your selection .207

Expanding and contracting by pixels .208

Removing specks and holes 208

Selecting similar areas .209

xv

Table of Contents

Feathering for More Gradual Edges .210

Antialiasing for Smoother Edges .212

Selecting All, None, or Everything But .212

Selecting Alex, and Only Alex .213

Avoiding Selection Problems in Layered Images .215

Chapter 13: Moving, Copying, and Reshaping Parts of Your Image .217

Floating, Moving, and Deleting Selections .218

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting from the Windows Clipboard .219

Cutting and copying .219

Pasting 220

Pasting to create a new picture: As New Image 221

Pasting on an existing image: As New Selection 221

Pasting for maximum flexibility: As New Layer .222

Removing the background or other colors from your selection .223

Tips for natural-looking pastes 225

Resizing, Rotating, Deforming, and Perspective-izing .226

Preparing for deformation 227

Doing the deformation 228

Other handy deformities .232

Chapter 14: Layering Images .235

Putting Layers to Work for You .235

Getting Layers 236

Calling a Pal for Help: The Layer Palette 237

Creating a New, Blank Layer .238

Working on Layers .241

Seeing, Hiding, and Rearranging Layers 242

Pinning Layers Together: Grouping .242

Using Layers to Separate or Combine Images 244

Combining entire images 244

Separating image parts into layers .244

Copying, cutting, and pasting with layers 245

Copying entire layers from one image to another .247

Blending images by making layers transparent .248

Blending images in creative ways .249

Creating and Using Adjustment Layers .250

Creating an adjustment layer 251

Choosing the type of adjustment layer you need .252

Applying adjustments to only certain areas .252

Using Vector Layers .253

Merging Layers .255

Table of Contents

Chapter 15: Adding Layers of Text or Shapes .257

Keeping Track of Objects and Layers 258

Adding and Editing Text .259

Creating, placing, and editing text .259

Bending text to follow a line or shape .262

Drawing Lines and Shapes .263

Straight, single lines .264

Freehand lines or shapes .265

Connecting dots 266

Connecting dots with curved lines .267

Adding preset shapes .268

Dragging a shape .268

Picking at Your Nodes 270

Changing Colors and Other Properties .272

Controlling Your Objects 274

Selecting and grouping vector objects .274

Deleting, copying, pasting, and editing .275

Positioning, arranging, and sizing by hand .275

Part V: Taking It to the Street 277

Chapter 16: Printing .279

Fitting Your Print to the Paper .279

Printing in Grayscale and Other Options 281

Printing an Image .282

Printing Collections or Album Pages .282

Fooling with the pictures and layout .285

Saving and reusing your template 285

Printing at Different Speeds or Qualities 286

Speed, size, and ink .286

Printer and image resolution .286

Chapter 17: Creating Web Images .289

Making Images Download Faster 289

Exporting Images for the Web .290

Choosing features and file types .291

Creating GIF files 292

Creating JPEG files 295

The JPEG Wizard .297

Doing Common Webbish Tricks .297

Creating buttons .297

Matching image colors to HTML colors .297

Creating Interactive Web Pages from Graphics 298

Creating image slices .298

Entering the links .300

Optimizing the cells .301

Saving and reloading your work .301

Saving the result as a Web page .302

Making rollovers .302

Chapter 18: Automating Paint Shop Pro .305

Saving Tool and Effect Settings As Presets .305

Scripting 101 .307

Recording a script .307

Running a script .308

Advanced scripting .309

Part VI: The Part of Tens 311

Chapter 19: Ten Perplexing Problems 313

“The Tool or Command Doesn’t Do Anything” .313

“Paint Shop Pro Keeps Asking Me Confusing Questions!” .314

“The Tool or Palette Just Isn’t There!” .315

“The Image Is the Wrong Size Inside or Outside Paint Shop Pro” 315

“The Paint Doesn’t Come Out Right” .316

“New Text Appears Whenever I Try to Change Text” 316

“The Text or Shape Comes Out the Wrong Color, Texture, or Pattern” 317

“The Magic Wand Tool Doesn’t Select Well” 317

“The Tool Works, but Not Like I Want” 318

“Paint Shop Pro Doesn’t Open Images!” .318

Chapter 20: Ten Fast Fixes for Photo Failures .319

Rotating Right-Side Up 319

Getting the Red Out .320

Photos without Enough Flash 321

Photos with Too Much Flash .322

Revealing Dark Corners 322

Removing Unwanted Relatives .323

Adding Absent Relatives .325

Zapping Zits .326

Making Gray Skies Blue .326

Making Colors Zippier .327

Index 329

Congratulations! Brilliant person that you are, you use Paint Shop Pro!

Thousands of other brilliant people also use Paint Shop Pro, and for oneintelligent reason: It does darned near anything you could want it to do, fromfixing photographs to animating Web graphics, and — unlike certain morefamous programs — it doesn’t set you back a week’s salary

Guided by that same intelligence, you’re probably asking yourself, “Is a bookavailable that gives me what I want, quickly, without dragging me through atutorial? One with an attractive yellow-and-black cover so that it doesn’t getlost in the clutter on my desk? Preferably cheap?”

Welcome to Paint Shop Pro 8 For Dummies, the attractive, inexpensive,

yellow-and-black book that lets you get great graphics out of Paint Shop Prowithout making you feel like you’re going back to school in an attractive,yellow-and-black school bus

What Can You Do with This Book?

Books are useful, elevating things Many people use them to elevate their PC

monitors, for example With that fate in mind, this book has been created to

serve an even higher purpose: to enable you to do the kind of graphics stuffyou really want to do Here’s a smattering of what you can do with the help ofthis book:

Download photos from a digital camera

Fix up fuzzy, poorly exposed, or icky-colored photos

Print album pages or other collections of photos

Paint, draw, or letter-in all kinds of colors, patterns, and textures

Draw using lines and shapes that you can go back and change later

Apply cool special effects to photos and drawings

Change colors of objects

Combine photos with other images

Alter the content of photos and other images

Remove unwanted relatives from family photos

Add wanted relatives to Wanted posters.

Retouch unsightly relatives on Wanted posters

Create transparent and other Web page graphics

Is This the Book for You?

Is this the Paint Shop Pro book for you? It depends If, like us, you tend to

leave chocolate fingerprints from your bookstore biscotti on the books you’re

browsing, it’s definitely yours now

In addition, this book is for you if

You find most computer books boring or useless

You need solutions rather than lessons

You find parts of Paint Shop Pro 8 confusing

You haven’t ever done much with graphics programs

You have used other Windows programs

You need Paint Shop Pro for business or home use

You really like bulleted lists

How Is This Book Organized?

Computer software “manuals” document features because that’s the easiestway to write one: “The File menu presents the following choices .” If features

on the File menu exactly matched what you had in mind, that would be great —but how are you to know to use the Clone Brush tool when what you’re reallylooking for is the “Fix Uncle Dave’s hair transplant scars” tool?

Some computer books are organized into lessons, teaching you how featureswork They give you examples of basic tasks and then more complicatedones Along the way — before too long, you hope — you find an exampleresembling what you had in mind

This book is organized by different kinds of tasks, like working with photos

or painting pictures or adding text Wherever possible, the book tells youexactly what to do in numbered steps Where that’s not possible, it explainshow things work in nontechnical language

You don’t have to read the book in any order Just skip to the section or

chap-ter you need Go right to the index, if you want — or the Rich Tennant

car-toons! In detail, this book is organized as described in this section

Part I: Getting the Picture

This part puts you in the picture and puts your picture in Paint Shop Pro

Chapter 1 puts you in the picture, explaining how to get control over all the

various doo-dahs floating around the Paint Shop Pro screen The chapter also

gives quick synopses of what the various tools do, which is particularly useful

for anyone who needs just a few hints to get going — and it tells you how to

open an image file, create a new image, or save an image as various file types

Chapter 2 tells you how to get existing images into Paint Shop Pro, whether it’s

from a scanner, a digital camera, or a PC screen This chapter also gives you

hints on how to do something your relatives will love: Squeeze files so that

they download quickly

Part II: Painting the Picture

Part II is for anyone who plans to paint, draw, or otherwise doodle in Paint

Shop Pro Chapter 3 addresses the new Paint Shop Pro Materials box, showing

you how to not only get the color you want but also paint in the wild

gradi-ents, patterns, and textures that Paint Shop Pro 8 offers Chapter 4 tells you

how to use the basic Paint Shop Pro painting tools and also how to control the

way the Paint Shop Pro paint tools work: brush size, spray patterns, brush

shapes, paint density, and more Chapter 5 shows you how to do something

you have seen only in cartoons: Make images flow right off a paint brush We

explain two features that are useful for retouching: the Paint Shop Pro Picture

Tubes tool (a kind of spreadable clip art) and the Clone Brush tool

Part III: Improving Appearances

When you have an image that needs some sprucing up, Part III is the place to

turn Chapter 6 shows you how to use the Paint Shop Pro hand tools to brush

away wrinkles from portraits, fix scratches, and remove red eye Chapter 7

gives you nearly instant ways to correct overall photo problems, such as bad

exposure, poor color, or blurry, speckly, and dim grayish images In addition,

we discuss the fabulous One-Step Photo Fix! Chapter 8 takes you to fun and

exotic lands of artistic effects, where you can twist, make three-dimensional

buttons, do cutouts, or make an image look like it was done in neon or

bur-nished copper! Chapter 9 helps you cope with the inescapable reality that,

yes, you really are using a computer, and if you want the most from Paint

3

Introduction

Shop Pro, you need to understand just a little about how it deals with color.Chapter 10 shows you how to fine-tune the quality of an image for contrast,brightness, and color and tackle the more subtle problems of certain photos.

Part IV: Changing and Adding Content

Part IV opens the door to a brave (and fun) new world: changing the content

of an image Chapter 11 shows you how to change the size, proportion, tation, and rotation of an image (Straightening an image, however, is covered

orien-in Chapter 2, with the scannorien-ing orien-information.) This chapter also shows youhow to crop an image to get the composition you want or flip the image into

a mirror image Chapter 12 gives you one of the key tricks for changing tent: selecting parts of an image Because Paint Shop Pro has no idea wherecousin Suzie begins and her husband ends, it’s up to you to tell Paint ShopPro “Suzie’s the one in white” or to outline her by hand, when you want toabstract her into a solo portrait Chapter 13 shows you ways to move, copy,

con-or reshape the parts you select Need a flock of jumping sheep when youhave only a few? Clone your sheep like Dolly! Chapter 14 shows you how todivide images into layers or use layers to combine images Layers are power-ful tools that make later editing much easier and produce stunning imageoverlays Chapter 15 lets you add layers of easily edited text and shapes to

an image, using the Paint Shop Pro 8 expanded vector graphics tools

Part V: Taking It to the Street

All this fooling around in Paint Shop Pro is great, but in the end you probablywant an image to appear somewhere else: on a piece of paper, on the Web, or

as part of an animation Chapter 16 shows you how to best fit an image onpaper It also tells you how to print multi-image pages for photo albums, col-lages, or portfolios Chapter 17 tells you how to get exactly the image fileyou want for the Web and gives you tips for getting the fastest-downloadingimages with the least sacrifice in quality Lastly, when you have found how to

do what you want in Paint Shop Pro, Chapter 18 shows you two new tricksthat Paint Shop Pro 8 has put in, scripting and presets, that save you oodles

of time in the long run

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Problems often come in threes, so this book tackles them by the tens, just

to be sure Part VI has fixes for the ten most-wanted issues that people runinto when they’re trying to use Paint Shop Pro Chapter 19 untangles the tenmost common confusions and perplexing problems of Paint Shop Pro, andChapter 20 gives you ten quick fixes for photography problems

Icons Used in This Book

This icon points out important issues or tidbits of information you want to be

sure to remember Just remember to look for the Remember icon

An all-purpose workhorse, this icon offers advice or shortcuts that can make

your life a whole lot easier

Skip over this one if you want This icon marks geekfest stuff you don’t really

need to know, but might find interesting

Tread lightly when you see this icon because something unpleasant could

happen if you proceed without following this cautionary note

Shortcuts and Conventions in this Book

This book doesn’t have many conventions It does, however, employ one

basic shortcut that is a convention in all For Dummies books:

Rather than say “Click the word File on the menu bar and then click the word

Open on the menu that drops down,” this book says “Choose File➪Open.”

This method saves time, saves trees, and keeps you from falling asleep (The

underlined letters you see in numbered steps are the same ones you find in

all Windows programs They indicate that if the mouse breaks, you can press

the Alt key on the keyboard along with the underlined letter’s key to get the

same result as though you had clicked the word with the mouse.)

(Oh, yes, please buy the book now Thanks.)

If you feel inclined, drop us some e-mail Dave’s at psp8@brightleaf.com,

and William’s at theferrett@theferrett.com We’re just two guys with no

special connections to Jasc (the company that makes Paint Shop Pro) and no

helpers, so we may not be able to answer your questions — but we’ll try

5

Introduction

Part I

Getting the Picture

Need to get in the picture quickly? Do you need to get

a picture quickly into or out of Paint Shop Pro? Starthere

The Paint Shop Pro screen has more controls, tools, andobjects floating around in it than the space shuttle has InChapter 1, we (briefly) summarize what all this stuff does,help you bring the various floating windows under yourcontrol, and show you how to use fundamental features,like the command history and undo/redo features If youalready have some experience with graphics programs,read Chapter 1 for a fast way to discover the unique PaintShop Pro quirks and features

Throughout the rest of Part I, we’ll show you how to getpictures into and out of Paint Shop Pro Do you alreadyhave an image file on your PC? We give you in Chapter 1different ways to open or create image files For instance,Paint Shop Pro provides a helpful image browser that letsyou see tiny, thumbnail images of various files before youopen them We’ll also tell you how to make the variouschoices involved in creating a new image, such as size,resolution, and number of colors We’ll point out also thepros and cons of saving images as different types of files

If you’re downloading an image from a digital camera,scanning an image from paper, or capturing it from your

PC screen, turn to Chapter 2 for help Discover the bestways to scan printed images, the two different ways to getimages from cameras, or the various ways Paint Shop Prolets you grab the exact object you want from a computerscreen Also, Chapter 2 discusses the amazing Paint ShopPro Straightening tool, which can help set a crookedimage right

Chapter 1

Opening, Viewing, and Saving

Image Files

In This Chapter

Opening and browsing image files

Zooming in and out

Saving image files

Reading image information

Working with different image types

Using vector file types

Converting or renaming batches of files

Working with file types and color messages

Downloading images from the Web

Images, like documents, music, or any other lump of stuff you work with

on a computer, are usually stored somewhere as files After you have animage as a file on a CD, your PC, or your computer network, Paint Shop Procan probably open it If the image is on a camera, you may need to download

it to your PC first — see Chapter 2

Images, like children, are easy to deal with in small quantities and variety —but in large quantity and variety, they’re challenging to manage Paint ShopPro gives you lots of tricks for keeping an eye on all your graphical progeny,from browsing and previewing them to zooming in or out or saving them as adifferent type of file

Image files come in an amazing variety of different file types because varioussoftware geeks over the years have decided that they know a much betterway of storing an image on a computer — a file type — than the last geek.Image files of different types have different multi-letter extensions at the end,like jpg, png, or tif People refer to them by those extensions, saying “jay-peg” or “jay pee jee” for jpg or “a ping file” for png These file types some-times behave differently in Paint Shop Pro, so see the section “Using native

and foreign file types,” later in this chapter, if someone gives you a file thatbehaves oddly Fortunately, although you need to be aware that images come

in a variety of file types, most of the time you don’t have to give a hoot PaintShop Pro can crack open most popular types of image file

Opening Image Files

Paint Shop Pro gives you three ways to open a file:

 Browsing (“I’ll know it when I see it”): Choose File➪Browse or press

Ctrl+B The browser window opens, as shown in the following section, inFigure 1-1 You open folders in the left panel, and double-click tiny pic-tures in the right panel to open them

 Opening (“I know its name and where it lives”): Choose File➪Open; or,

click the Open button on the Tool Bar, or press Ctrl+O The Open dialogbox appears, as shown a couple of sections from here, in Figure 1-2

 Double-clicking (“There it is — open it”): If you see a file listed and it

displays a Paint Shop Pro icon (a tiny, artist’s palette), double-click thatpuppy and Paint Shop Pro should start up and display the image.That’s all you need to know — well, at least most of the time, that’s all Thefollowing sections give you some additional tricks and tips for opening files inthose three ways

If you can see the image, but aren’t sure where the image file is, see Chapter 2.Images that appear in some document (a Web page, a Microsoft Word docu-ment, an Adobe Acrobat document) may not be stored as a file on your com-puter (Or, if they are, they may be very hard to find.) You may need to capturethe image off your screen

For some files, Paint Shop Pro has to translate the image file into a form it can

use Translation may especially be necessary for vector image files, such as

DXF and WPG To translate, Paint Shop Pro needs additional information fromyou: specifically, how many pixels wide and high you want the image to be.See the section “Using Vector File Types (Drawing Files),” later in this chapterfor more information

Nifty browser tricks for opening and managing files

We like the browser best for opening files because it also lets you managethem visually Do one of the following to open the browser:

 Press Ctrl+B.

 Click the Browse icon, as shown in the margin

 Choose File➪Browse

 If the Open dialog box is open already, click the Browse button

Figure 1-1 shows the Browse window, with the sort of images you see next

(Paint Shop Pro may take a few seconds to display all the images.) To close

the window when you’re done, choose File➪Close or press Ctrl+F4

The left side of the Browse window looks and works like Windows Explorer

Click a folder to see its contents (thumbnail images of the graphics files in

that folder) If the folder contains more folders, a + sign appears to its left To

open that folder, click the + sign; to close it, click the – sign that now appears

where the + sign did

On the right side of the window are the thumbnail images with their

file-names Here are some ways to make good use of your thumbnails:

 To open an image file: Double-click the image.

 To check image type, size, and date: Pause your cursor over any

thumbnail Paint Shop Pro displays the information near your cursor

For more detail, right-click the thumbnail and choose Information fromthe menu that appears

 To manually rearrange thumbnails: Drag them where you want them.

 To move an image to a different folder: Drag the thumbnail from the

right pane to your destination folder in the left pane

 To copy a file to a different folder: Drag the thumbnail to another

folder while holding the Ctrl key down

 To create a new folder: In the left panel, click the folder in which you

want to create a new folder Choose File➪Create New Folder, and in theCreate New Folder dialog box that appears, type your new folder’s name

 To delete a file: Right-click its thumbnail and choose Delete from the

menu that appears

 To rename a file: Right-click its thumbnail, choose Rename from the

drop-down menu, and enter a new name in the Rename File dialog boxthat appears

 To select several files for opening, moving, copying, or deleting: Hold

down the Ctrl key and click their thumbnail images To select a series,left-click the first (or last) image; then hold down the Shift key and clickthe last (or first) image Follow the instructions in the preceding bulletsfor opening, moving, copying, or deleting files

To sort your thumbnails in different ways, follow these steps:

1 Right-click the blank area to the right of the pictures and choose Sort from the context menu that appears.

The Thumbnail Sort dialog box appears

2 Choose Ascending or Descending sort order from the Primary Sort tab.

3 Choose what to sort by in the Sort Conditions area: file attributes, such as date, or image attributes, such as dimensions (size).

4 To sort within a sort (such as by filename within each file date), click the Secondary Sort tab and again choose a sort order and what to sort by.

5 Click OK to sort.

Helpful hints for opening files

by name and location

If you think that you know the name of your file and the disk and folder where

it lives, you can choose the fastest route to opening the file Choose the familiarold File➪Open command (every program has one) or press Ctrl+O or click theFile Open button on the toolbar (as shown in the margin of this paragraph).Paint Shop Pro adds a few special features for working with images, however.Figure 1-2 shows the Open dialog box that appears

Double-click an image file in the Open dialog box and Paint Shop Pro tries toload it Often, however, you find that you’re poring over a big pile of files withsimilar names Here are a few tricks to help you find the one you want:

 To make sure that you’re opening the right file: Click to enable the

Show Preview check box Then click any file, and a preview appears inthe Preview window, as shown in Figure 1-2 The Preview feature mayslow you down The computer takes a little extra time to display a pic-ture, so you may want to disable the check box if you have big picturesand don’t really need previews

 To switch to the browser: Click the Browse button.

 To open more than one file at a time: Hold down the Ctrl button while

clicking filenames, and then click the Open button Or, to open a bunch

of image files listed sequentially in the Open dialog box, click the firstfile, hold down the Shift button, click the last file, and then click theOpen button

 To open a commonly used or favorite folder: Click the Favorites

button That’s the rightmost button (refer to Figure 1-2) on the dialogbox toolbar From the drop-down list that appears, choose the MyPictures folder, the My PSP8 Pictures folder (in My Documents on yourhard drive), or the Paint Shop Pro 8 folder (in My Programs on your harddrive.) You can add a folder to the list Just open that folder in the Opendialog box, click the Favorites button, and choose Add Current from thedrop-down menu To remove a folder, choose Remove and then choosethe folder from the list that drops down

 To trim down the list of files to show just one type (if you’re looking for

a GIF file, for example): Click the Files of Type selection box and choosethat type from the many file types Paint Shop Pro can read

Go to afavoritefolder

Preview appears hereClick to see preview

If the file you want isn’t listed, make sure that the wrong file type isn’tchosen in the Files of Type selection box File type choices are “sticky,”

in that if you previously chose to display only GIF files, the next time youuse the Open dialog box it displays only GIF files If you’re looking for aJPG file now, you don’t see it! Choose All Files under Files of Type to seeall files again

 To see information on image width, height, and color depth: Read the

Image Information area after you click your file

 To see more information about an image you have clicked, such as

date or file size: Click the Details button.

Secrets of opening a file

by double-clicking

If you see an image file listed on your computer — in a My Computer orWindows Explorer window, for example — and it displays the Paint Shop Propalette icon, you can open it in Paint Shop Pro by double-clicking that icon Ifyou have several images you want to open, double-click each of them sepa-rately, and they all get a separate window in Paint Shop Pro You don’t end upwith multiple copies of Paint Shop Pro running

If you have an image file that Paint Shop Pro doesn’t open when you click it, three things could be responsible:

double- The file doesn’t have an extension, like jpg or gif This problem oftenhappens when someone sends you a file from a Macintosh computer.Use the browsing or File➪Open technique described in the precedingsections

 Paint Shop Pro can’t open the file Paint Shop Pro can open many ent types of files, but not all of them

differ- Paint Shop Pro may not be configured to open that file type See thenearby sidebar, “Making Paint Shop Pro open the right file types whenyou double-click.”

Viewing and Zooming an Image

Working with images on a PC involves a great deal of zooming — changing the

magnification of your view Sometimes you need to work close up, taking thatnasty gleam out of Uncle Charley’s eye, for example (something Aunt Mabelhas been trying to do for years) Other times, you really need to see the wholepicture, but Uncle Charley’s gleaming eye rather scarily fills the whole window

Zooming doesn’t change the size of an image (in pixels or in inches) It only

changes how big Paint Shop Pro displays the image onscreen

Zooming an image in the window

The basic way to zoom in (enlarge the view) or zoom out (see the big picture)

is to use the Zoom tool Click the tiny down arrow on the top button on the

Tools toolbar, as shown in the margin of this paragraph Buttons in Paint

Shop Pro 8 are what we call “tool groups” from which you choose a tool

15

Chapter 1: Opening, Viewing, and Saving Image Files

Making Paint Shop Pro open the right file types

when you double-click

Two problems can occur with double-clicking

as a way of opening image files:

 Paint Shop Pro may open files that you

would prefer to be opened by some other

program For example, if you’re running

AutoCAD or another AutoDesk program,

you may prefer that the AutoDesk program

open DXF files because they’re one of

AutoDesk’s own file types

 Paint Shop Pro may fail to open image files

that you want it to open For example, you

may install new software for a new digital

camera, and, suddenly, when you

double-click JPG files, some program other than

Paint Shop Pro opens the file

These problems usually occur when you have

more than one graphics program The latest one

installed may grab all the file types for itself

Both problems can be solved the same way

Follow these steps to determine which files are

opened (or not) by Paint Shop Pro:

1 Chose File➪Preferences➪File Format

Associations.

The File Format Associations dialog box

appears This box directs Windows to open

certain file types using Paint Shop Pro

2 Click the check boxes to enable or disable the file types you want opened by Paint Shop Pro.

To disable all check boxes, click RemoveAll To enable all check boxes, click SelectAll (After that, you can enable or disablecheck boxes manually, if you like.) To havePaint Shop Pro open only the file types thataren’t opened by any other program, clickSelect Unused

3 Click OK.

At this point, Paint Shop Pro is properly set up

to open just the file types you want it to and

leave the others alone The other program you

use, however, may still not be properly set up to

open the files you want it to open We can’t give

you much help with that, but we can tell you oneplace to get help: Choose Start➪Help from yourWindows taskbar In the Help window thatappears, click the Index tab and then, in the text

box at the top left of the window, type File

extensions Below that text box appears a line

reading “Associating with programs.” click that to get help with associating file exten-sions with your other program

Double-Here, you get a choice of the Pan tool (the arrow) or the Zoom tool (the nifying glass) Click the Zoom tool Your cursor changes to a magnifying glassicon Then click with it on the image in this way:

mag- Click (left-click) to zoom in.

 Right-click to zoom out.

To see the image at its actual size (100 percent), press Ctrl+Alt+N or chooseWindow➪View Full Size

Paint Shop Pro 8 also lets you magnify a portion of the image, rather thanhave to enlarge the whole thing to see a detail With either the Pan or Zoomtool selected, choose View➪Magnifier or press F11 Move your cursor over anarea of the image, and a special 5x Zoom window shows you a close-up view ofthat area Repeat the command or press F11 again to remove the magnifier

Working on several images at a time

You can open several images at a time in Paint Shop Pro Each one gets itsown window Having several images open is useful for tasks such as cuttingand pasting between images To help manage those windows, use the com-mands on the Paint Shop Pro Window menu That menu contains the usualsuspects of nearly all Windows programs: Cascade, Tile (Horizontally orVertically), or Close All to close all image files

Remember that Paint Shop Pro tools and commands apply to only the image

window that’s active (the one with the colored title bar) Click an image

window’s title bar to make that window active and bring it to the front

Saving a Changed Image File

After you’re done modifying an image in Paint Shop Pro, you need to save it.Saving an image in Paint Shop Pro is often just as easy as saving a MicrosoftWord document, for example Choose File➪Save or click the Save button onthe standard toolbar (the diskette icon) or press Ctrl+S

Paint Shop Pro quietly saves, in most instances, an image as the same type(format) of file (JPG, for example) that it was when you opened it It may,however, raise a warning, depending on what changes you have made — seethe following sidebar, “When Paint Shop Pro offers a merger.”

If you have added text or shapes, or overlaid images on your original image,saving the modified image as a Paint Shop Pro file is a good idea; see the fol-lowing section

Saving the Image First As

a Paint Shop Pro File

If you bake a pie, you can (a) save it in a nice Tupperware pie carrier if you’re

taking it to a community supper (b) wrap it in plastic and freeze it if you’re

planning ahead for a holiday or (c) mush it into a little plastic bag and put it

at the bottom of your backpack if you’re going hiking In all cases, you still

have tasty pie — but stored in ways that are appropriate for particular uses,

and not appropriate for others

Likewise, you can save an image as many different types of file Some types

are good for one purpose, and others for another The choice depends on

what you (or the people you give the file to) intend to do with the image

Another person, for example, may have Photoshop but not Paint Shop Pro,

and so may want a Photoshop file instead Or, you may need a JPG, GIF, or

PNG file for putting on a Web page (which doesn’t display many of the other

image file types)

17

Chapter 1: Opening, Viewing, and Saving Image Files

When Paint Shop Pro offers a merger

Paint Shop Pro lets you do some sophisticated

modifications to an image, like adding fancy

text, shapes, or overlaying images To simplify

this sort of image work, Paint Shop Pro keeps

some stuff on separate layers (That way, you

can fool with your changes without messing up

the original.)

Not all file types (like JPG) can handle layeredimages So, if you start with a JPG image, puttext on it, and try to save it as a JPG image file,Paint Shop Pro will have to combine all thoselayers into one single layer, called a mergedimage Paint Shop Pro pops up the dialog boxshown in this figure

We suggest that you decline this merger: Click

No Then save your file as a Paint Shop Pro

image If you must have an image of a certain

type (for example, a JPG or PNG file for a Web

page), save a copy of the image in that file typeinstead See “Saving a Copy of Your File AsAnother File Type,” later in this chapter

The best idea, however, is to first save the image as a Paint Shop Pro (PSP)type of file, even if it started out life as a different type Paint Shop Pro filesare a good choice because, among other things, they save layers and any cur-rent selection you may have made during the editing process Most other filetypes don’t save that stuff Some file types are “lossy” (like most JPG vari-eties), which means that they may even lose quality PSP files are sort of theTupperware solution.

After you have taken the precaution of making a Paint Shop Pro file, if you (orthe people to whom you’re giving the file) also need a different type of file,

save a copy as that other type of file If you make subsequent changes to the

image, always make the changes to the Paint Shop Pro file and then makecopies of that file in the various file types you may need

To save any image as a Paint Shop Pro file, first look at the filename on thetitle bar, in the upper-left area of the Paint Shop Pro window (The filename

appears after the words Jasc Paint Shop Pro.) The filename should end in a

period and three letters; if not, see the following sidebar “How the FPX can Isee the TIF, JPG, DXF, and other extensions?!”

If the filename has the extension psp or PspImage, simply choose File➪Save

or click the Save button on the toolbar You’re done! (Your image was a PaintShop Pro file already; you just updated that file with your latest changes.)

If the filename ends in anything other than psp or.PspImage, follow these steps:

1 Choose File➪Save As.

The Save As dialog box appears

2 Click the Save as Type box and select the Paint Shop Pro Image option.

3 Select a folder and type a name for the file.

Do this exactly as you would to save a file in any other Windows program

To save an image in a personal favorite folder, click the Favorites button,the rightmost button on the Save dialog box’s toolbar In the drop-downlist that appears, you can choose the My Documents folder (We don’trecommend saving in the Temp, or temporary, folder.) To add your ownfavorite folder to the list, first open that folder in the Save dialog box.Then click the Favorite Folders button and choose Add Current from thedrop-down menu To remove a folder, choose Remove and then selectthe folder from the drop-down list

4 Click the Save button.

The image is now safely stored as the best file type possible for a Paint ShopPro user, with nothing lost

Saving a Copy of Your File

As Another File Type

After saving the image as a Paint Shop Pro file (see the preceding section), if

you also need the image in a different file type, follow these steps:

1 Choose File➪Save Copy As.

The Save Copy As dialog box appears

2 Select the file type you want from the Save as Type box.

If you want to save the file as a Paint Shop Pro file, but in a form that earlier versions of Paint Shop Pro can read, click the Options button

The Save Options dialog box appears; choose the version you want, andthen click OK

If you’re saving the file as a non-PSP file, the Options button may begrayed-out (disabled) If not, it provides access to variations on yourchosen format that can sometimes be useful, like reducing the file size

or putting the file in a particular form that somebody needs The ing section provides a few examples of options

follow-3 Click the Save button.

When you save a copy in a different file type, the open file isn’t affected It

remains whatever file type it was If you have used layers (or floating

selec-tions) and save a copy as something other than a Paint Shop Pro file, Paint

Shop Pro may have to merge (combine) those layers into a single image The

program displays a dialog box to warn you if it needs to merge layers into a

single image That merge doesn’t happen to the Paint Shop Pro image you’re

working on, only to the file copy you’re creating Don’t worry — just click Yes

to proceed

Using Native and Foreign File Types

You often have to open or create files that are not a Paint Shop Pro file, and

knowing something about the file types can be helpful The next sections

describe a few of the most popular file types Each file type is identified by

the three-letter ending (extension) it uses For example, Paint Shop Pro files

end with the extension psp or PspImage

Most of the time, you don’t have to do anything special to open a particular

file type or to save your work as that type of file — but, then again,

some-times you do Paint Shop Pro, in most cases, simply asks you a few questions

to resolve any problems when opening or saving a foreign file type

19

Chapter 1: Opening, Viewing, and Saving Image Files